(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a device for dispensing individual containers, for example flower pots, from a nested stack of containers. More specifically, the present invention discloses an apparatus for dispensing rows of individual containers into a larger container, for example, a tray. Individual containers are separated from the stack of containers by three synchronized extendable arms.
(b) Description of Related Art
Quick, reliable and inexpensive dispensing and alignment of individual containers (i.e., from a stack of containers) is a common necessity in many industrial processes. Millions of containers for raw or processed foods, e.g., egg cartons, cereal bowls and hamburger boxes must be dispensed and handled every business day. The apparatus of the present invention is capable of meeting these container dispensing and handling demands. The present apparatus finds particular usefulness, however, in the field of dispensing individual pots, e.g., for flowers or potted plants.
The increasing urbanization of modern life has created both many benefits and problems. Vast concentrations of workers now spend their entire working lives within large, hermetically-sealed, inner-city office buildings where space is at a premium. The tomb-like impression within many office buildings is accentuated by post-oil embargo efforts to limit climatic control expenses by minimizing airflow between the building interior and the outside world. These factors often combine to produce large bodies of stagnant dry air within buildings which have a much higher than normal concentration of carbon dioxide (CO.sub.2). Such buildings often become breeding grounds for respiratory and other illnesses.
These factors have combined to greatly increase the use of interior gardens and atriums in modern office buildings, hotels and other public buildings. Interior gardens require careful management to maximize the sunlight utilization, visual appeal and oxygen (O.sub.2), producing qualities of the plants during the changing seasons. Professional landscape designers and gardeners commonly rotate and vary the plants within buildings several times a year. The increased awareness of, and involvement in, managing plantings within buildings comes at the same time as more and more suburban residents are putting their environmental concerns into action by maximizing their use of plants around their homes.
These developments have given rise to increased commerce in individually-potted plants (e.g., annuals such as marigolds, cacti, etc.). Individual consumers often purchase a few such plants (e.g., typically in pots which have about a three inch on a side mouth and which are perhaps five inches deep) for their office. Consumers may also go to a nursery to select a tray (e.g., perhaps fifty-six potted plants laid out in a seven by eight array in a tray which is still small enough to be carried comfortably) of young plants for replanting in their home gardens. Once the plants have been replanted, the empty pots may often be resold to the nursery or applied as a discount against next year's purchase.
Professional gardeners are probably the biggest users of individual potted plants. In light of the tight space constrains found at many atrium and other landscaping jobs, gardeners often prefer to avoid planting large numbers of plants within the same pot since doing so would cause the plants' roots to intertwine, thereby making separation and placement of individual plants (without injuring the plants) difficult. Furthermore, gardeners.degree. desires to be able to carry large numbers of plants from, for example, their truck to the job site at one time (e.g., through the use of seven by eight trays of individual pots) and their need to be able to reuse pots over and over have given rise to a great need for an apparatus capable of preparing trays or other groups of individual pots quickly and efficiently.
The problem of preparing, for example, a tray of tightly-spaced pots is exacerbated by the need to reuse pots after the plants they contain are replanted elsewhere (especially pots containing highly adhesive "starter" soils). Heretofore, it has often been necessary to wash each individual pot after the plant it contained has been replanted before the pot could be stacked, stored and reused. If pots were not rewashed, they often stuck together, making redistribution of the pots into an array within a tray difficult. Obviously, washing individual pots is a time-consuming, tedious, and labor-intensive task which can greatly increase a gardener's overhead expenses.
Other devices have failed to recognize this need or have tried unsuccessfully to solve the problems addressed and solved by the present invention. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,270,669 to Luke discloses an apparatus for separating and dispensing nursery pots which are nested in a stack. The apparatus includes a ratchet mechanism which allows the stack to move in only one direction along a predetermined path, an elongated bar mechanism for engaging the first pot at one end of the stack and pulling it away from the pots in the stack and a contact off switch which responds to the presence of a pot at a dispensing location along the path to deactivate the bar mechanism. This apparatus is clearly a suboptimization, however, since it still requires the operator to remove each pot by hand.
Other devices have been constructed which
require the use of a non-vertical stack of containers. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,054,212 to Mueller discloses a cup dispensing apparatus and method wherein a stack of cups is moved along a generally horizontal path and individual cups are separated from the stack by a pair of gripper means which engage the rim of the cup. Also, U.S. Pat. No. 3,472,403 to Mueller et al. discloses an apparatus for handling containers wherein individual cups are pulled from the bottom of stacks of mouth-side-down containers. The device includes a plurality of studs (84) upon which individual containers are positioned which are thereafter rotated around to position the containers in a mouth-side-up orientation. These devices mandate additional handling in comparison with devices which release a container from a stack in a mouth-side-up orientation.
Other devices have been developed which include arms or other pot-moving extensions which move from side to side. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,415,416 to Broersma et al. discloses a pot dispenser having a cylindrical guide tube for receiving and holding a plurality of stacked pots and also having a cam actuated stripper mechanism having fingers which engage the upper edge of the lowermost pot for pushing and separating the same from the stack of pots. The dispenser further has a cam actuated clamp mechanism for holding the stack of pots in position while the lowermost pot is separated therefrom by the stripper mechanism. The fingers of the stripper mechanism are moved vertically to sequentially separate and dispense the lowermost pot from the stack. As stated in lines 30 to 34 of column six, movement by the cam means (91) causes the lever (37) to be swung outwardly from underneath the pots allowing a single pot to be dispensed and dropped into the catch plate (86).
U.S. Pat. No. 3,120,324 to Amberg et al. discloses the use of an alternative type of lateral movement. As shown in FIGS. 15-17, each stack of cups is surrounded by three cup support elements (124) and three cup stripper elements (125), these elements alternate around the periphery of the cup. Each of the cup support elements (124) and cup stripper elements (125) rotates about its own individual axis on shafts (144) and (158) respectively. As shown in FIG. 16, when a stack of cups is dropped into the dispensing apparatus, the flange on the lowermost cup comes into contact with a flange segment (180) on each of the cup support elements (124), so that the cup is supported at 120.degree. intervals by the three cup support elements (124). At this point, the cup stripper elements (125) are not engaged with cups (34). When it is desired to dispense a cup, both the cup support and cup stripper elements are rotated so that they reach the position shown in FIG. 17, in which the second cup from the bottom of the stack is supported by flanges (179) on the cup support elements (124), while the flange of the lowermost cup in the stack is no longer supported by the flange elements (180). Simultaneously, the flange of the lowermost cup is gripped by a groove (177) in the cup stripper elements (125). This groove varies in height around the periphery of the cup stripper elements (125), and as these elements continue to rotate, the lowermost cup is pulled downwardly to the position shown in FIG. 15, at which point the lowermost cup drops from the stack assisted by a flange (118) on the cup stripper element. Further rotation of the elements (124) and (125) returns the apparatus of the position shown in FIG. 16.
Since these types of devices require significant open space around the edge of each container (in order to accommodate the positioning/movement of the container-handling machinery) they often cannot be used in situations where multiple rows of containers must be dispensed in tight formation.
Other devices require the utilization of complicated mechanisms involving multiple cams, springs, rollers and extending finger-like members. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,327,843 to Corley discloses a cup dispensing mechanism having a pair of coacting jaws which each contact nearly one-half of the periphery of the cup. Each jaw has sufficient flexibility to fully conform to the cup contour thereby making it possible to grasp cups having varying dimensions. After the cup is grasped, the jaws are moved axially with respect to the cup to withdraw the cup from the stack. The jaws then open to release the cup and return to their initial position to be ready to grasp the next cup. A plurality of resiliently-biased fingers placed about the bottom of the hopper hold the stack of cups; however, when a cup is drawn away, they retract sufficiently to release that cup but grasp the next cup. Devices of this complexity may obviously be prone to break down.
Other devices, even devices which house/dispense multiple stacks of containers, utilize multiple sets of prying members which slide between, and pull apart the rims of the bottom two containers. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,795,344 to Falk et al. discloses a bowl or cup dispenser capable of dispensing two sets of cups. As shown in FIG. 4, the device utilizes two opposed sets of fingers (113) which slide under the lip of the next-to-bottom cup and above the bottom cup. The fingers progressively widen along their length with the result that the bottom cup is eventually pried from the stack. The lateral movement of these fingers makes positioning multiple columns of cups in close proximity to each other (i.e., capable of dispensing multiple pot arrays into a tray) impossible.
Other devices focus on the rim of the bottom container. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,436,222 to Taylor et al. discloses a variety of rim-grabbing mechanisms (e.g., round notches--FIG. 2 and square notches--FIG. 3) which often need to encircle a substantial portion of the container to be effective (see, e.g., FIGS. 5 and 6). The effectiveness of these types of devices is severely hampered if the container's rim is damaged, non-uniform or partially covered with debris.
Therefore, a quick, reliable and simple device for separating individual flower pots from a stack of pots and depositing the pots into a multi-pot array without the necessity of handling by workers has not heretofore been available.